te maid to whom, and to whom alone, we meditated
entrusting the secret of this hidden passion, considering that, should
another share it, our uneasiness, lest it should not be kept, would be
most grievous. Furthermore, it would weary you if I mentioned all the
plans we adopted, in order to meet divers situations, plans that I do
not believe were ever imagined by any before us; and albeit I am now
well aware that they all worked for my ultimate destruction, yet the
remembrance of them does not displease me.

Unless, O ladies, my judgment be greatly at fault, the strength of our
minds was by no means small, if it be but taken in account how hard a
thing it is for youthful persons in love to resist long the rush of
impetuous ardor without crossing the bounds set by reason: nay, it was
so great and of such quality that the most valiant of men, by acting in
such wise, would win high and worthy laud as a result thereof. But my
pen is now about to depict the final ending to which love was guided,
and, before I do so, I would appeal to your pity and to those soft
sentiments which make their dwelling in your tender breasts, and incline
your thoughts to a like termination.

Day succeeded day, and our wishes dragged along with them, kept alive by
torturing anxiety, the full bitterness whereof each of us experienced;
although the one manifested this to the other in disguised language, and
the other showed herself over-discreet to an excessive degree; all of
which you who know how ladies who are beloved behave in such
circumstances will easily understand. Well, then, he, putting full trust
in the veiled meaning of my words, and choosing the proper time and
place, came to an experience of that which I desired as much as he,
although I feigned the contrary. Certainly, if I were to say that this
was the cause of the love I felt for him, I should also have to confess
that every time it came back to my memory, it was the occasion to me of
a sorrow like unto none other. But, I call God to witness, nothing that
has happened between us had the slightest influence upon the love I bore
him, nor has it now. Still, I will not deny that our close intimacy was
then, and is now, most dear to me. And where is the woman so unwise as
not to wish to have the object of her affection within reach rather than
at a distance? How much more intensely does love enthrall us when it is
brought so near us that we and it are made almost inseparable! I say,
then